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History

Grodd was a scientist in Gorilla City. He developed a helmet that allowed him to control the minds of others. The Gorilla City security force stopped him from using it in the city, but he escaped capture and eventually wound up in Central City, where he ran afoul of the Flash and Green Lantern. Grodd was seemingly rendered harmless after Flash "crossed a few wires" in his mind control helmet and tricked him into using it. This fried his brain and everyone assumed that he was brain-dead. Grodd not only recovered from this, but no longer needed the helmet to control minds.

At some point, Grodd met a female gorilla named Giganta, whom he transformed into a human, who could grow to many times her normal size. It is unknown if she always had this ability or if it was as a result of Grodd's work.

Grodd and Giganta would later recruit Shade, Parasite, Sinestro, Killer Frost, and Clayface into the Secret Society, a group to oppose the Justice League. Grodd started playing mind games with the league, which left their integrity as a team fragile and the individual members vulnerable to capture. With the Justice League incapacitated, Grodd brought his Society to a stadium in Gotham to announce to the world about a new order. When the League escaped captivity and reforged its bonds, both sides faced off, but the Secret Society was defeated in the end.

Grodd would later revive the Secret Society, but on a much grander scale; nearly every supervillain on Earth was inducted into one group. To this end, Grodd helped Lex Luthor escape from prison, and secured Luthor's services in Grodd's emply by promising Luthor the last piece of Brainiac, a cube which contained Brainiac's entire computer code, from which Luthor could reconstitute his "partner." Grodd also freed Tala from the mirror Felix Faust tricked her into, winning her loyalty and affection in the process. Grodd also installed psychic safeguards in each of his allies' minds; if they were ever in a situation where his plans could be revealed, their brains would automatically "short circuit" and shut down, wiping their memories and leaving them comatose.

Grodd leading a Legion of Doom meeting

After the Legion recovered various artifacts and devices (including the Heart of Nanda Parbat), Grodd had his Society invade Gorilla City. Taking control of its advanced shield generator, Grodd finally revealed his grand scheme: With the Heart boosting its power and a DNA sequencer installed in its circuitry, the generator would broadcast a signal to turn all of humanity into apes. Grodd succeeded in his plan, but his smug assurance of victory would be his undoing. Moments after Tala teleported Grodd, Luthor, and herself away, the Justice League arrived and destroyed the device, reverting everyone on earth back to normal.

Back at Grodd's headquarters, Luthor was so disgusted with Grodd's plan that he incapacitated Grodd by shooting him with a non-lethal weapon and took over the Legion (which Luthor was planning to do eventually, but the sheer ridiculousness of Grodd's plan prompted him to bump up his schedule). To add insult to injury, Grodd was thrown into his own prison and left to watch Tala transfer her fickle affections towards Luthor within moments of his takeover.

Luthor kept Grodd alive for information on the Brainiac piece, even attempting to use his own mental technology to tear the information from the ape's head. However, due to the League's attempts to track Grodd and the Legion down (and some bad timing), Grodd became a circuit that caused Luthor and the Flash to switch minds. Grodd was immediately aware of the switch, but chose to keep quiet for his own amusement, having decided to see how long the Flash could keep up the ruse before being discovered and torn apart by the Legion.

After many fruitless attempts to get Luthor's attention away from Brainiac, Tala decided to go back to Grodd, helping him to escape and lead a mutiny against Luthor. The Society was effectively split into two factions; Grodd loyalists and Luthor loyalists. While the two sides fought a full-blown civil war, Grodd and Lex had a one-on-one fight that Grodd clearly dominated. Unfortunately, the gorilla's arrogance worked against him; despite having Luthor at his mercy, the latter's taunts goaded Grodd into using his mental powers, hoping to dominate Luthor's mind.

The moment Grodd activated his telepathy, Luthor used a failsafe device to turn Grodd's own powers back against him. Under Luthor's control, Grodd bowed before his rival and walked forward into an airlock. For the final insult, Luthor released his reflected control on Grodd just before opening the airlock. Glaring impotently at the treacherous human, Grodd swore revenge before being sucked out into space, never to be seen again.

Powers and abilities

As a gorilla, Grodd possessed strength and stamina much greater than that of even the strongest normal human being. However, Grodd's strength, while superhuman, was no match for powerhouses such as Superman, who was capable of flicking Grodd the length of a football field with one finger. In addition, he possessed a hyper-developed brain, and was one of the most intelligent beings on Earth. His advanced brain developed incredible mental powers (with some accidental help from The Flash's tinkering), most notably mind control and telepathy. With these abilities, he could manipulate a person's movements or simply terrorize them into helplessness.

Background information

In the DC comics, Gorilla Grodd was one of several gorillas that were accidentally evolved by an alien being who crashed in the jungles of Africa. Using their new abilities, the gorillas built Gorilla City and made the alien their ruler. Grodd used his mental abilities to have two humans kill the alien, hoping to be named king of Gorilla City, but he was passed over in favor of Solovar. Grodd then tried to overthrow Solovar and attack humanity, but Solovar managed to warn Barry Allen of Grodd's intentions.

Grodd appears in Justice League Unlimited #39. After somehow surviving being sucked out into space by Luthor Grodd found his way back to Earth, but was captured and imprisoned in Gorilla City.